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Clearing the Slate

by ETF Base on June 22, 2011

Debt is the biggest challenge facing millions of people. After years of accumulating rolling high interest debt and seeing their net worth moving in the wrong direction as liabilities overtake any income gains, it’s worthwhile assessing various debt solutions and tackling the problem once and for all. This requires a mix of “acceptance”, discipline and execution.

It’s tough to save for retirement, your kids’ college or even enjoy a stress-free life with the constant burden of ever-increasing high interest debt burden. There is debt help out there for those who choose to help themselves. This is especially true of high earners or people who have an opportunity to earn extra income, which these days, is virtually everyone given the advent of online income opportunities. There’s also always the option of cutting expenses further, but you can only cut a standard budget so deep, whereas additional income is limited only by time and ambition for those that have such options available to them.

The options are numerous ranging from do-it-yourself systems like the Debt Snowball method and envelope budgeting systems to debt consolidation whereby one relies on combining multiple debt streams into a single payment. The benefit of that option is that rather than trying to track multiple bills, payments and due dates throughout the month, one can pretty much “set it and forget it” and focus on chipping away at that one big goal each month. Of course, you’d expect that the interest rate that comes with such an endeavor makes it worthwhile as well.

The question doesn’t come down to exactly what your approach is so much, but rather, that you want to make a change and clear the slate. Old habits are hard to break and while it might be tough at first, changing the lifestyle, the spending habits or having less free time while earning additional income at night and on weekends, clearing the slate may result in a complete change in the quality of life in the long-run. Lower stress, a better retirement, improved health outcomes, more friends and family and leveraged income down the road if you keep at those additional income roles even after your high interest debt obligations are settled. It’s up to you how you go about tackling your debt challenges – but do something!